Parents Stand by School Committee Member-Elect Santos After CPS Resignation Agreement Surfaces

Cambridge School Committee member-elect Luisa de Paula Santos faced a wave of backlash last week after details of her departure from Cambridge Public Schools became public — but many parents said their support for her has not wavered.

Santos repeatedly cited her experience at Fletcher Maynard Academy during her campaign, framing her run for the School Committee as driven by a desire to fix the issues she had seen firsthand. But when she resigned in July, she agreed never to work for the district again, according to a confidential separation agreement first reported by The Boston Globe and later reviewed by The Crimson.

In interviews with The Crimson, several parents rejected the idea that Santos misled voters by not disclosing the separation agreement during her campaign.

“She was elected, and people who elected her obviously liked what they heard from her,” parent Tina L. Lieu said. “And she’s not becoming an employee of CPS. It’s not violating an agreement.”

Wyatt M. Greene said “a bit of empathy is in order,” arguing that Santos cannot “tell her side of the story.”

“There’s nothing that can stop member-elect Santos from being a good School Committee member and focusing on good decisions for the students,” Greene said. “I think it’s better to be more future-focused than past-focused in this matter for the sake of the students.”

Santos worked as a special education paraprofessional at Fletcher Maynard Academy from August 2023 until July, when she launched her campaign for the School Committee. State law bars district employees from serving on the School Committee, which oversees the district’s policies and budget.

In a statement to the Globe, Santos alleged that the separation agreement was the result of a “really unfair and biased investigation” by school leadership and was retaliatory for her work in the teachers’ union. Santos declined to comment further to The Crimson.

The agreement states that neither Santos nor the district admitted to “fault, liability, wrongdoing or unlawful conduct on the part of either party.” Under its terms, the district agreed to pay Santos’ salary through July 31 — the same day she formally launched her campaign.

Santos wrote in a statement to The Crimson that the document was confidential and that someone had taken an “extraordinary step” to leak it, a move she wrote “could not only be seen as a punitive action but may very well be in violation of the law.”

Amber B. Fisher, a parent in the district, said it was “very alarming” that the document had been leaked and called for an investigation into how it was shared.

CPS spokesperson Jaclyn Piques did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether a district employee had shared a copy of the agreement. Fletcher Maynard Academy Principal Robert Tynes also did not respond to a request for comment.

Lily R. Reed, a teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and a Watertown School Committee member, said the disclosure raised concerns about the security of information within the school district.

“As an educator in this district, I would really like to know how this information was shared with the press,” she wrote in a statement.

City spokesperson Jeremy H. Warnick wrote in a statement that holding elected office differs from being hired and employed by the city.

To many parents, that distinction is clear.

Fisher, who voted for Santos, said she does not see how the agreement “has any bearing on the campaign that she ran.”

“She did not apply to another role in the Cambridge Public Schools district,” Fisher said. “She worked as a paraprofessional before, and now she’s working as a paraprofessional in another district, and I don’t see any issue with that.”

Santos received the third most votes in the ranked-choice election, becoming the only current public school educator elected to the seven-member committee. As one of three challengers elected last month, her victory represented a changing of the guard.

With the new School Committee set to take office in two weeks, parents and Santos’s future colleagues said they are largely looking forward.

“I’m looking forward to serving with her and with the rest of the committee, and I’m sure she is as well,” incoming School Committee member Arjun K. Jaikumar said, adding that he had no prior knowledge of the situation.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Emily T. Schwartz can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @EmilySchwartz37.